RAWALPINDI: Massive excavation work across Rawalpindi’s busiest commercial roads has plunged the city into severe traffic chaos, leaving residents, traders and transporters battling daily gridlock as key routes are dug up just weeks before the monsoon season.
The Water and Sanitation Agency has launched sewerage projects on Hamilton Road, Tyre Bazaar, Jamia Masjid Road, Ghazni Road and Farooq-i-Azam Road, severely disrupting access to Raja Bazaar and surrounding wholesale markets. The timing has sparked outrage, as many of these roads were reconstructed only two years ago under a Rs2 billion development package.
The crisis has worsened because Raja Bazaar remains partially closed under the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation’s pedestrian street project, which has dragged on for more than a year without completion. With additional digging now underway, traders say business activity in the city’s commercial heart has been crippled.
Goods transporters are also facing major difficulties as trucks delivering supplies to grain and wholesale markets are being diverted through longer routes via Murree Road and Khayaban-i-Sir Syed. Transporters warn that the closure of Gunjmandi Chowk for further excavation could paralyse the city’s logistics network.
Officials within the district administration have raised concerns over the absence of safety measures, saying deep excavations remain uncovered in densely populated areas. Traders fear delayed construction and inadequate drainage could trigger urban flooding when heavy rains begin in late June.
Residents say the simultaneous closure of major roads has turned routine travel into an exhausting ordeal. WASA officials insist the projects are essential to improve sewerage infrastructure, but frustrated citizens argue that poor planning, repeated road digging and lack of coordination have once again left Rawalpindi residents paying the price.
